Shortly after joining the team, reality set in how one can drink from a fire hose working in higher ed. As I graduated from one role to another, more responsibilities were added—and then more.

As someone who had never managed a communication plan, I searched desperately for outlets and resources to learn how to create emails, schedule them, and connect with my audience. At one point, I had a wall full of post-it notes in an attempt to teach myself to segment audiences.

At the same time, we were launching our first CRM. I was accountable for managing the social media accounts, and we were still trying to connect social to recruitment, marketing, and communications—and paving a lot of new roads.

As technology continued to grow, I felt like I would never catch up. My beginning encompassed SIS Banner (Ellucian) and spreadsheets that were uploaded into an email system to send.

Like a fire hydrant that can’t be turned off, the work continued to come but hours were not added to the day. I wrote policy and created new workflows and management for the systems. The ever-imposing question loomed—how does one get the work done?

• We needed a new person to manage the CRM data
• We needed someone to run social media
• We still needed a website manager
• And we got zero additional budget dollars with which to do it all

This scene is not unusual in higher ed. As we continue to add, we start looking for snorkel gear to stay afloat. We know we can’t take away from the growing tasks and duties for marketing and communications. So, what’s a marketer to do?

In retrospect, much of my time in higher ed was spent riding a wave of rapid information download. It was a crazy time. But the information gained from those experiences set me up for my success today and gave me insights to help higher ed marketers like you rise with the tide when you start to feel underwater.

5 Tips for Finding Resources—and Giving People Chances

In a world where higher ed enrollment is declining, this is the time to strategize and find the help you need to be a rockstar.

1. Find yourself first. Establish your position in your department—trying to do it all helps no one. It will create frustrations for you and for the staff looking for your assistance. Create boundaries and work toward a solution to include others. Then you can work toward building successful communication plans.
2. Customer relationship management. If you already have a CRM, find a great marketing firm to help strategize your communications and organize your emails in the CRM. A great partner can help you create impactful digital ads. If you don’t have a CRM, then find an email platform and get on top of your data. Managing data outside of a system is painful and will lead to disasters, like sending the wrong message to the wrong parent on a recruitment list (yes, I did this once in a previous position). Find someone like me to help organize your data and create a system within the budget.
3. Social media campaign management. If your college has a student intern for social media, include them in learning how campaigns are created and launched. Don’t give them the keys and turn them loose. While they likely won’t have the expertise to run the campaign solo, adding a student worker can create a win-win environment. I remember a time when our department was asked to lead a marketing effort on campus to help students showcase their work at the end of the year. We were at full capacity, and I knew that if we added another project, stuff would simply start breaking, including my staff’s morale. I already had a student worker in our department, so I assigned the campaign for her to manage. We had weekly check-ins and I shared my collateral on managing campaigns to help get her started. I approved all final products to provide constructive feedback. The faculty involved loved working with a student and giving her a positive experience. She did a great job. It built her resume with practical experience and our department got the job done. In the second year, she took the project and was able to improve on what had been done the previous year.
4. Google Business Profile optimization. Another example I recently saw is the constant growing points marketing departments need to oversee for risk management. Google Business Profile is one of those examples. I have not taken a poll but would surmise that this is not on the radar for most colleges and universities. Leaving this unchecked puts the institution at risk for someone unaffiliated or unqualified claiming a location. Locations that are never claimed and are a poor representation of the institution affect brand and search engine optimization (SEO). Marketing directors and similar roles may not know much about this lengthy process and its ongoing maintenance. Find someone who can help claim sites. Add expertise to your team to get this done or partner with a service that can meet your budget and adjust to fill your department’s needs.
5. Partner with an empathetic, actionable firm. I remember there was a time when I was looking for a marketing firm to help our department with social ads and retargeting. When I approached an organization I wanted to try and gave them my small budget, they never returned my calls. I laughed at the time and still to this day; I guess we didn’t fit their budget. Connect with a firm that serves as an extension of your team rather than a receiver of your money. A worthy firm will give you the best value for your budget dollar—even if the approach is a bit different than your original vision.

Related reading: Program Decision Tree: A Tool to Select the Appropriate Digital Strategy

Don’t Do This Alone

As each additional channel and technology are added, your team will need new skill sets, adding a level of expertise for each solution. Skills for managing a website are different than those for managing email, print, or digital ads. It is unreasonable for one person to do it all, or at least do it all well. Trying to cover all areas will lead to mediocre performance and more errors.

If the marketing budget can allow you to hire another team member, determine your greatest area of long-term need. For big or short-term projects, it is easier and often more cost-effective to hire contractors or a firm to help with the digital piece.

Digital marketing, whether it is web, social ads, search ads, email, and more, is a growing specialized business. It makes sense to hire outside to add expertise to your marketing team, even when it is a team of one—you. How can I help? If you need communications support (or just want to scream into the void), let’s schedule a time to talk.

That makes sense, but higher ed marketers often get stuck on where to start. What are the right messages for each stage? And when should we start sending?

The answer? It depends on which stage you’re focused on and how your goals align with audience needs.

Right place, right time, right message. Make sure you focus on the right audience!

Contemplating College

Start messaging for this group right now. These folks aren’t in your data set—they’re out there in the ether right now, scrolling the web and pondering their current and future life. They might be thinking:

• What will I do after high school?
• I hate my job. Get me out of here.
• I love my job, but I need a promotion.

You can reach this audience by creating blog stories, videos, and social posts that answer these questions. Your stories will plant the seed to get Contemplators thinking about making a change. It’s the softest of sells, and when they graduate to the Leads and Prospects stage, your brand will be top-of-mind.

Leads & Prospects

Leads are sometimes referred to as prospects—who don’t necessarily know about your institution yet. They should be the largest data set for your communication plan. If it is currently the smallest, this is your sign to spend resources on widening your outreach to the Contemplators and growing your L&P list of students discovering your institution. Get tips on how to set up data sets for recruitment.

Messages for the L&P group should be about taking them along for a ride. Show them what you have to offer and make them crave engagement with your school. Key topics to hit on at this stage include:

• Programs you offer
• Value and cost to attend
• How to visit campus

If you want to dabble in some exploratory options and have a killer team, include L&Ps in campus activities, such as sporting events or theatre productions. Is your college hosting a summer camp? Send them an invite. This is a soft approach to get the student on campus and increase familiarity.

For key messages to current high school seniors or adult learners looking to start college, weaving in the above messaging will increase the urgency to apply. Remind them of key deadlines—such as when to file the FAFSA—to start building a relationship and position your institution as a trustworthy resource for information.

Inquiry

When a potential student has reached this level, they know about your school and have raised their hand to engage with you. So, messages for this group are a little more specific. The data sets on these students are more robust than leads. For example, you might have an idea what program they are interested in and may also have their parent or family member contact information.

Your communication plan for Inquiries should focus on key elements of what a student needs to know to choose your school, such as:

• Programs you offer
• Cost of attendance
• Admission and application steps
• Whether the school is a good fit
• Financial aid offerings, such as FAFSA and institutional scholarships
• How to visit campus

If a student is a senior in high school, include a link to apply with each message. No one can entirely predict when a student will convert to the next stage, so it’s best to keep that link handy. High-performance students tend to make decisions early in the year. Go ahead and send a mailer in early August to increase awareness of your college or university as a precursor to your digital communications.

If a student is a junior in high school, be careful about including links to apply. Generally, institutions do not enroll students younger than 17. There are exceptions to the rule, such as accelerated students. And if you think they are in your pool for communications, then it is wise to review your data on their anticipated start year. Messages to this audience should focus on visiting campus and taking them on a journey into the next recruitment year when they can apply. Topics are the same as for seniors but the call-to-action may be different, depending on the message.

When to include parents or guardians: For Inquiries ages 15-19, include key family members who typically help with college options. Regulations for digital communication such as email or text have parameters about who your school can “talk” with, and including parents early helps with meeting regulations. Positioning yourself as the expert on college admission information builds trust with family members, which can make your school their go-to for resources.

Applicants

The applicant pool has three phases to build communication around, each with specific messaging to help coach the applicant along in the process:

• Not submit
• File incomplete
• Decision made

Not submits need information about completing their application. This is akin to an online retailer saying, “you left something in your cart.” Your messages should prompt the individual to complete and submit their application. These messages usually have a specific link not found on the website for the student to access and complete the application.

Often institutions do not include this phase in their communications, yet it is a crucial step for students. A client of ours recently discovered that students were struggling to complete a profile that was tied to authentication. By fixing that issue, they could provide a useful link to log in and complete the process. This simple communication can easily increase yield each term.

File incompletes should receive a confirmation message with crucial next steps after submitting their application. This is an excellent step to include in the admissions checklist as a dynamic webpage or PDF with steps to complete. Each step on the checklist should have a link to click and complete.

The checklist is a great tool to build emails that are specific to key steps. For instance, if a student needs to submit seventh-semester transcripts, send an email about that step. Include the link to the checklist if they complete this step and are ready for the next one. Send the next message about submitting their medical history and where to submit it, such as the student health center.

Monitor your communications at this stage and watch the engagement. If certain messages are not opened or clicked, they may need to be reworked, folded into another message, or eliminated.

Decision made is the final leg of the applicant’s journey. Here, messaging takes another turn and starts talking about steps one must take to be ready for class. This includes messages like:

• Confirmation of attending
• Housing registration
• Reminder about submitting medical history
• Orientation day
• Accepting their financial packet
• How to register for class and meet with their advisor
• Move-in day
• Anything that is custom to your school and will help a student be ready to start

Once a student has completed these steps and made it through the admission process, communication is about reminders and keeping the student engaged. If you use an app, make sure students are receiving messages and engaging with it to get the most recent information.

Some institutions send acceptance packets. This is a great opportunity to engage the student on social media and invite them to closed groups centered around new students or family members. Use this opportunity to send a poster with a hashtag about starting college and encourage them to post to their favorite social channel to help build organic positive postings on your school’s site.

Matriculated

After move-in and the first day of classes, continue the conversation to keep students engaged. General messaging to this audience can include available services, such as student health and tutoring. Send messages, post on social media, and hang flyers on campus about events, clubs, and other activities—don’t let up on the brakes at this stage.

The percentage of students who do not return after the first term or semester is staggering. Continuing to engage and keep students in the loop about events and activities can help them find their place at your school.

Continuing to engage with each phase of the enrollment funnel is imperative to your headcount on the first day and the fourth week of school. Schools that become complacent with matriculated students are missing a key opportunity to engage more.

Review your data. Take inventory of the size of groups and make business decisions accordingly. Find the holes in your communication and provide information in small bites as a potential student moves through the college or university’s recruitment cycles. Then check your engagement rates and adjust the message or plan. Rinse and repeat.

We’d love to help you develop your strategy, build a communication plan, or optimize your enrollment campaign. Connect with Stamats to learn more about accelerating your enrollment growth.

So how do you design a recruitment email that is beautiful AND functional? Answering these basic questions is a good place to start.

1. Do you know who your audience is?

Identifying who you are talking to is the foundation of the message. This helps create a plan of who to talk to and what they need to know based on their knowledge about your institution.

For instance, applicants go through several communication stages, each requiring unique information and prompts to move to the next stage—they don’t need the same content as a student who hasn’t yet submitted an application. In contrast, a lead may not know your school exists or know very little about it. I think you get the idea.

Working with clean data is a deal-breaker for sending segmented messaging to the student and their family. To obtain clean data, there must be a plan for ongoing maintenance. To learn more about the importance of clean data and how it should look, make sure to check out my piece on SMS Texting and data.

2. What is the one thing you want to tell them?

Sending multiple messages pulls a reader in multiple directions. Keep the message clean and simple. If you need an applicant to complete their application, then keep the message to that call-to-action (CTA). And if possible, do not exceed more than three sentences at the beginning. If you have to share more, break it up with subheadings or white space to help the reader digest the information.

Once a student completes the application, this triggers the subsequent messaging about submitting final admissions paperwork to complete their file. The other steps you may need a student to complete come later with a carefully curated communication plan.

After the message is created, create the CTA. This is important because you will want this metric to watch the effectiveness of your email and campaign. Ideally, the CTA is a button included in the email following a quick explanation of why the action is needed. Be careful not to bury the CTA too low in the email content— the reader may miss the CTA simply because they skimmed and moved on.

Recently I experienced a similar situation when purchasing my child’s school pictures. I navigated through the process, and when I arrived at the transaction, I failed to complete it. I didn’t notice my error until school pictures came and went and the packet we received was basically empty. Upon further investigation and checking to see where my pictures were, I discovered the button to submit the transaction was low on the page and the other information was higher. I grumbled a little for poor design and made sure I selected “submit’” on my second run on the process.

This is an excellent lesson in making sure that whatever you want the reader to do is visible, front and center.

3. How many links do I put in an email?

I recommend that marketers let the message dictate how many links should be included in a given message. For instance, an invitation does not need to include more than a couple of links. A quick link to RSVP after the introduction is all you really want the reader to do.

If the message is talking about programs at the college, embedding several links in the story can make it more engaging as you explain the great and many options. Variety can help validate what you are telling the reader. Additionally, a content section below the CTA—not burying it—can help upsell your institution with links to the FAFSA and scholarship page.

4. Picture or no picture?

Does adding an image help tell the story better? Or does this image help the student see themselves at your college or university? Rely on the tone and theme of the message to make this decision.

Quick update messages or confirmations to actions—such as a form submission—rarely need an image because adding one won’t enhance this experience. In contrast, if the message is to continue the recruitment and selling of your school, a picture is valuable because it can help demonstrate your value.

If you use a photo, make sure it is relevant and that it reflects the tone of the story your message is telling. For example, you may have a lovely aerial photo of your campus, but that won’t do much to excite students about getting involved with campus activities. An action photo of students playing pickleball would be a more suitable choice.

5. Who can the recipient contact for help?

Sometimes overlooked but crucial to all communications are the required housekeeping items. Make sure you include an opt-out or unsubscribe link. It is the law and an important tool to help clean up your list and send it only to those who want to hear from you. In the end, this helps with metrics by including only the most engaged recipients.

The second item to include is the contact information for someone on your team who can help. Include an email and/or phone and a description of who they are and how they can help.

There are many items to consider when creating an email. These are the basics to get started on the road toward successful recruitment messaging.

We’d love to help you develop your strategy, build a communication plan, or optimize your enrollment campaign. Connect with us to learn more about accelerating your enrollment growth.

When I started working with communication plans over 10 years ago, there were little to no resources available to extract from and synthesize into something to use. Over time, I learned (sometimes the hard way!) a series of key steps to consider when building a communication plan to reach engaged prospective students, families, and influencers—and ultimately increase matriculation.

If you run into a snag, please feel free to reach out to me—I am happy to clear up areas that may be particularly tough to navigate. 

1. Define Your Audience

In the beginning, it may be difficult to come up with dates. Most key dates are part of the lexicon of higher ed and are second nature to internal business processes. Because of the second nature of a regular cycle of dates, it is difficult to slow processes and identify key items that are highlighted in a communication. Examples of events that you could message may include:

• High school seniors  
• High school juniors 
• High school sophomores 
• High school freshman
• Parents/family members of potential students
• Transfer students
• Online students
• Applicants, all phases

Messages may overlap later in the recruitment cycle, but early contact should ALWAYS stick with one message and CTA and include only information that is timely and relevant for that audience.

2. Identify Key Dates for Students to Act

In the beginning, it may be difficult to come up with dates. Most key dates are part of the lexicon of higher ed and are second nature to internal business processes. Because of the second nature of a regular cycle of dates, it is difficult to slow processes and identify key items that are highlighted in a communication. Examples of events that you could message may include:

• When it is time to apply for FAFSA
• Foundation scholarships are open to apply
• College event(s) for students to register and attend
• High school visit days
• Financial Aid assistance event
• Deadline for applications

And remember to include dates that matter to the applicant pool. Students who have entered the application process are still at a recruitment stage and could benefit from strategic messaging about key application dates. Generally, applicants are found in three phases:

• Application started, not submit
• Application submitted, admission file is not complete
• Admit (admissions file is complete)

It is not unusual for applicants to apply to multiple schools when choosing a path. Make sure you continue to communicate with and recruit this audience, so you continue to shine and help them find their way to your college.

Once dates for deadlines and events are cataloged, the next step is to organize messaging to the appropriate audiences with dates to send, including reminder messages that may follow these key dates’ announcements.

3. Organize Messaging

As part of this step, you’ll need to decide how many messages and when to start the campaign leading up to the event. Different kinds of events warrant differing lead times. For example, the average Preview Day is usually promoted 60 days prior because of the lead time families need to plan the trip, budget, and take time off work.

If your school is offering a recruitment event that is longer than a day or half a day, provide a bit of a longer lead time for travel planning. Also, consider the size of the event to host. If the event is sized for 30 students, the lead time can be closer to 60 days.

Another tip is to pull demographics of the past three years’ worth of events (acknowledging COVID-19 outliers) for distance and learn the average radius from which your school pulls. If driving time averages less than a day, this helps provide insights into the audience’s potential travel plans to attend. If the radius is less than 200 miles, this is considered “in proximity.” And if the draw is more than 250 miles, give extra marketing time to help accommodate travel arrangements.

In contrast, events needing a longer lead time—such as homecoming, commencement, or multi-day recruitment events—may tax the city or town’s lodging capabilities. So, it is best to give ample time for families to book accommodations. The audience your school is communicating with expands for larger events, too. This means longer lead times for promotion to reach audiences that are farther away.

I usually use a spreadsheet format to organize my messaging—that way, it’s easy to move from data-segmented campaign contact lists to crafting messages, without having to switch between programs. Each column supplies the header of pertinent information such as the title of the message and important notes to keep in mind when building the communication.

Examples of headers can include:

• Timing to send message
• Title of message
• Kind of message, e.g., SMS texting, email, social media
• Audience—to signify subcategories within an audience such as on campus and online
• Notes about the message

Messages to consider are all about the students and families:

• If your school is sending a message about attending an event, keep the message solely about attending that event. Adding more will muddy the message intent, which is to generate attendance.
• If an email is sent to keep the cost of attendance transparent, make sure the message is about tuition, fees, and other relatable costs to attend. Adding a notice to attend an event, for example, creates a split message that leaves the recipient feeling overwhelmed.

Carefully consider the audience when crafting messages. Any emails that have a link to apply should never land in the inboxes of juniors in high school. Generally, juniors in high school cannot legally apply to attend college. There are exceptions, but these are rare. If you have a message for all audiences and there is information about applying, clone the email. Then send two emails: one for those who can apply and one that has no reference to applying for younger audiences.

Once send dates are established, layer in the additional supporting materials to use for communications, such as postcards, texting, and social media.

Don’t Do This Alone

These three steps will start you on your way toward a planned and strategic communication plan that will support recruitment and retention efforts. If you have these established and are looking to grow, we’re happy to meet and discuss what your institution wants to achieve. Stamats provide services that are scalable to extend areas where your institution is functioning and supplement where there are opportunities to grow.

These steps will help with the framework of how to take your recruitment outreach from good to great. A strategic communication plan can increase matriculation and help new students start class with less frustration, thanks to your proverbial trail of key dates in obtaining an education.

We’d love to help you develop your strategy, build a communication plan, or optimize your enrollment campaign. Connect with Marianne Sipe to learn more about accelerating your enrollment growth.

Pima Community College in Arizona made great strides in their enrollment numbers for Fall 2021 by pivoting and sending strategic SMS text marketing reminders to reduce stopouts, which had increased nationally due to the pandemic. The focus audience for the campaign was stopout students.

In summer 2021, Pima reported an increase in enrollment by 17%, at a time when most colleges and universities in the U.S. were losing students—generating 308 re-enrollees in just five days and earning thousands of dollars in tuition. To date, their two text campaigns have totaled over $531,000 in potential ROI.

Texting is effective because of the inherited precision for sending a message—particularly shorter messaging, because you must consolidate and get right to the point. The specific audience segmenting that texting requires ensures you are speaking to the right students who need your message most. Everyone is checking their phones constantly, so messages sent via text rise to the top, as opposed to getting lost in a crowded email inbox.

You can increase enrollment by implementing SMS texting alongside your email marketing strategy. Finding your best audience and getting them to connect with you requires a two-fold approach.

First, you must focus on defining and refining your data to articulate the exact student segments on whom you want to focus your enrollment efforts. Then, you must write a focused message that resonates with your audience and drives them to action.

Reach Students Efficiently with a Focused Data Strategy

Follow these three tips to use data strategically and identify the perfect audience(s) for your messaging:

1. Collect key data points.

Long before a single message can be sent, culminate a set of data, and organize it to reach the precise audience, at the right time. The information you compile is only as valuable as the integrity of the data.

Make sure your data is correct. Spelling errors, outdated information, incomplete fields, duplicated records, etc., can throw off your marketing efforts from the onset by eroding student trust in your carefully curated messaging.

Review and clean your data periodically, ensuring it is accurate and relevant. To build a strong data foundation, we recommend you collect as many of these data points as possible:

• First and Last Name
• Date of Birth: You cannot require this field, but you can always ask.
• Mailing Address
• County
• Cell Phone Number
• Permission to Text: This is important for SMS campaigns and can be gleaned from a number of forms at the inquiry or application stage. Record the date of their response for further data accuracy.
• Email
• Anticipated Start Year and Semester/Term
• Type of Student: Is this their first year or are they transferring into the school? Are they dual credit?
• Student Stage: This is important for crafting relevant messaging. Stages include Leads (likely have never heard of your school), Inquiry (submitted a request for the school to send information), or Applicants (either unsubmitted or submitted).
• Program(s) of Interest
• Self-reported GPA
• Data Source: Where did you acquire the information about the potential student?
• Source Date: This will track how long it takes to yield a potential student and other great recruitment data discussions. It is also useful for messaging purposes.
• Family/Parent Contact Information
• Alumni Affiliation: Is a parent an alumnus of the school?

Collecting these key data points and storing them in your customer relationship management (CRM) system provides a framework for you to focus your SMS messaging efforts to reach, recruit, and retain salient student segments. If you do not have a CRM, you can store data in an email platform, spreadsheet, or custom database such as Access or in the SISS.

Want a hand getting started? Email Marianne Sipe for help reviewing, streamlining, or updating your data collection process.

2. Follow a logical hierarchy to locate pertinent audience data.

Remember your enrollment funnel. Data searches start wide—your entire CRM database—and then you filter values again and again, until you reach the specific audience needed for a message.

For instance, starting at the Student Stage allows you to collect all inquiries—potential students who raised their hands and asked for your school to send information.

However, you may want only students who are transfer students for this message.

Add an additional filter to find only students who are transfers. Focusing your search narrows the audience further. Next keep adding filters as needed, until you precisely reach the audience you are trying to target.

Eventually, you polish your list into a fine-tuned, customized audience. You are now ready to create tailored text messages.

3. Gain permission and be transparent with your motives.

Before you write any messages, make sure you have permission to send them. Following the rules and being courteous is crucial when sending text messages in large batches.

Partner with your legal department to ensure your marketing communications follow regulations applicable to your institution (i.e., CAN-SPAM Act, California Privacy Act, GDPR). Not following the rules can lead to legal claims or reputational harm.

For SMS campaigns, make sure you always:

• Document the response and the date the permission to text is collected.
• Offer a clear and simple option to opt out of communications.
• Include who the text message came from in the body of the message. It is off-putting to receive a text message and not know who it came from.

Following these basic steps helps schools remain on the right track to following regulations for texting. Not following the rules can lead to more opt-outs, meaning your school can no longer communicate with the students.

Next, curate focused SMS messages that encourage your audiences to take the intended next steps.

Related reading: How Strategic Calls-to-Action Improve the User Experience and Marketing ROI

Create Customized SMS Messaging Content

Follow these three best practices every time you create a tailored text message for your customized student segments:

1. KISS Principle: Keep it short and simple.

Use simple language and focus on your main point. Keep every text message to 160 characters or less, including spaces. Any longer and it breaks into two or more messages.

The breaks can confuse or irritate the recipient. Sending lengthy text messages turns many recipients off and may lead them to opt out. Once that happens, your school can no longer reach or communicate with them through this channel.

When a system sends messages and breaks them into parcels during transit, additional costs accrue for your institution. If you only send 25 messages, this extra cost is insignificant. But if the batch of sends is more like 3,000, this steadily eats away at your communications budget.

Use a character count tool providing characters including spaces to check all message lengths.

2. Make it pertinent, or don’t send it.

While developing any communication plan, ask yourself if the message is about a crucial date or a crucial step. If the answer is no, it is better not to send it by text. Find a different avenue to send the message—and in some cases, don’t send it at all.

Some examples of appropriate reasons for SMS messaging include:

• Announcement to register to attend orientation
• Reminder to submit a transcript or medical documentation
• Reminder to register for classes
• Request to confirm whether the student plans to attend school in the upcoming semester

Consider the best time to send a message. For example, the first day of school is probably not the best time to send a reminder message. Sending reminders a week before classes start can be effective for community colleges.

Then, verify the message is pertinent for every person you plan to send it to. Imagine your messaging campaign is focused on getting stopouts to register for the upcoming semester. In that example, you would remove data points for and avoid sending the message to students who:

• Are dual credit
• Are high school students
• Are on academic probation
• Have a hold on their account
• Cannot access the steps to register because of other barriers

Sending an unnecessary or irrelevant message creates issues for the student and the college. This can lead to bad PR on social media as students post disgruntled commentary about the poorly sent text.

Less can be more. Exclude additional, irrelevant data points from your send list to create a clean and strategic audience for your specific call-to-action. Sending texts to the right people the first time helps you reach the intended goal of the message faster—and positions you for a win-win with the audience.

For example, Pima launched another stopout campaign in 2022. Over 30 days, they contacted nearly 13,000 stopout students and earned potential immediate revenue—plus ongoing potential revenue for subsequent semesters. In other words, they earned a return on investment for increased tuition for the institution from students who clicked a link in the message and registered for classes on the spot.

3. Begin with the end goal in mind.

When you craft every message, ask yourself, “In an ideal world, what action will your student take with this message?” That is your end goal.

Messaging for stopouts is specific, with a small number of branches where the student can land to reach the goal. The goal of the college is for the stopout to register for class. Carefully design your messaging to clarify where a student currently is in the process.

Set the flow of the messaging to find out if the students are:

• Ready to register
• In need of assistance
• No longer interested

The response places students into the appropriate audience bucket to share with your internal staff tasked with helping students. This conserves resources, encourages enrollment, and sets a school up for success.

With each campaign you send, you will gain valuable insights to help you hone your student segments further and fine-tune your messaging based off previous efforts. Consistent, versatile strategies are important to any marketing plan.

Consider including SMS text marketing in your multi-channel digital marketing strategy. It can help you get in front of the right students, at the right time. We’d love to help you develop your strategy, build a communication plan, or optimize your enrollment campaign.